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One might think of classicists as the most tradition-bound of humanist scholars, but in fact they were the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of computing and digital technology in the humanities. Today even classicists who do not work on digital projects use digital projects as tools every day. One reason for this is the large, but defined corpus of classical texts at the field’s core.

The post Classics in the digital age appeared first on OUPblog.

Reports over recent months from South Korea’s Yonhap news agency have suggested that two prominent North Korean politicians have been executed this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un. These reports evoke some interesting parallels from the darker side of the history of ancient Rome, or at least from the more colourful stories told about it by Roman historians.

The post Ancient Rome vs. North Korea: spectacular ‘executions’ then and now appeared first on OUPblog.

History and poetry hardly seem obvious bed-fellows – a historian is tasked with discovering the truth about the past, whereas, as Aristotle said, ‘a poet’s job is to describe not what has happened, but the kind of thing that might’. But for the Romans, the connections between them were deep: historia . . . proxima poetis (‘history is closest to the poets’), as Quintilian remarked in the first century AD. What did he mean by that?

The post A history of the poetry of history appeared first on OUPblog.

"Your library of a gracious country villa, from where the reader can see the city close by: might you squeeze in my naughty Muse, between your more respectable poems?" Martial’s avid fans will find themselves on familiar ground here, at the suburban ranch of the poet’s aspirational namesake, Julius Martial (4.64).

The post ‘Your fame will be sung all round the world': Martial on the convenience of libraries appeared first on OUPblog.

"If you have no better offer, do come," 11.52 helps put flesh on the bones of Martial’s Rome (‘you know Stephanus’ baths are right next door…’) and presents the city poet in a neighbourly light. It’s also a favourite of modern foodies in search of an unpretentious sample menu from ancient daily life.

The post ‘If you have no better offer, do come’: Martial’s guide to Roman dinner parties appeared first on OUPblog.

I begin with one of Martial’s more troublesome twentieth-century Avid Fans: the poet, editor, translator, and Fascist propagandist, Ezra Pound.

The post ‘A girl who made the peacock look ugly, the squirrel unloveable': Martial mourns a lost love appeared first on OUPblog.

Martial adores sexy boys. He craves their kisses, all the more so if they play hard to get, "� buffed amber, a fire yellow-green with Eastern incense… That, Diadumenus, is how your kisses smell, you cruel boy. What if you gave me all of them, without holding back?" (3.65) and "I only want struggling kisses – kisses I’ve seized; I get more of a kick out of your bad temper than your good looks…" (5.46).

The post ‘I get more of a kick out of your bad temper than your good looks': Martial’s guide to getting boys appeared first on OUPblog.

His books are famous around the world, but their author struggles to get by – two themes that quickly become familiar to any reader. Martial has an eye for fabric. He habitually ranks himself and judges others by the price and quality of their clothing and accessories (e.g. 2.29, 2.57), a quick index in the face-to-face street life of the crammed metropolis.

The post Distinctive dress: Martial’s index to life in a crammed metropolis appeared first on OUPblog.

What have the Romans ever done for us? Ancient Rome is well known for its contribution to the modern world in areas such as sanitation, aqueducts, and roads, but the extent to which it has shaped modern thinking about sexual identity is not nearly so widely recognized.

The post What have the Romans ever done for us? LGBT identities and ancient Rome appeared first on OUPblog.

An epigram is a short poem, most often of two or four lines. Its typical metre is the elegiac couplet, which is also the metre of Roman love poetry (elegy) and the hallmark of Ovid. In antiquity it was a distinctively Greek literary form: Roman writers were never comfortable in it as they were in other imported genres, such as epic and elegy. When they dabbled in epigram they often used Greek to do so. Martial’s decision to write books of Latin epigrams, and nothing else, is thus a very significant departure.

The post Roman author, Greek genre: Martial’s use of Epigrams appeared first on OUPblog.

Who is ‘Martial’? "Up to this point, Madam, this little book has been written for you. You want to know for whom the bits further in are written? For me." (3.68) Marcus Valerius Martialis was born some time around AD 40 (we know his birthday, 1st March, but not the year) at Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis, a province of oil- and wine-rich Roman Spain.

The post Introducing Martial: Epigrams appeared first on OUPblog.

The poet we call Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis, lived by his wits in first-century Rome. Pounding the mean streets of the Empire's capital, he takes apart the pretensions, addictions, and cruelties of its inhabitants with perfect comic timing and killer punchlines.

The post Oxford World’s Classics Reading Group Season 4: Martial’s Epigrams appeared first on OUPblog.

The shadow of the Roman poets falls right across the entire western literary tradition: from Vergil’s Aeneid, about the fall of Troy, the wooden horse, and the founding of Rome; through the great love poets, Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus; Ovid’s Metamorphoses, treasure-house of myth for the Renaissance and Shakespeare; to Horace’s Dulce et decorum est, echoing through the twentieth century. We all take it for granted … so now’s the time to check your working.

The post Can you get X out of X in our Latin poetry quiz? appeared first on OUPblog.

There is a good deal of historical evidence for women’s leadership in the early church. But the references are often brief, and they’re scattered across centuries and locations. Two interpretations of the evidence have been common in the last forty years.

The post Four myths about the status of women in the early church appeared first on OUPblog.

The British Museum’s current blockbuster show, Defining Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art, amasses a remarkable collection of classical sculpture focusing on the human body. The most intriguing part of the show for me was the second room, “Body colour,” which displays plaster casts of several Greek sculptures brightly painted in green, blue, yellow, red and pink. The press has not known what to make of “Body colour.” It has been met with surprise, sneers, or been entirely ignored in otherwise glowing reviews.

The post Redefining beauty in the suburbs of Victorian London appeared first on OUPblog.

For over 2,000 years the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome have captivated our collective imagination and provided inspiration for many aspects of our lives, from culture, literature, drama, cinema, and television to society, education, and politics. With over 700 entries on everything and anything related to the classical world in the Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, we created an A-Z list of facts you should know about the time period.

Alexander the Great: He believed himself the descendent of Heracles, Perseus, and Zeus. By 331 he had begun to represent himself as the direct son of Zeus, with dual paternity comparable to that of Heracles.

Baths: Public baths, often located near the forum (civic centre), were a normal part of Roman towns in Italy by the 1st century BC, and seem to have existed at Rome even earlier. Bathing occupied a central position in the social life of the day.

Christianity: By the end of the 4th century, Christianity had largely triumphed over its religious competition, although a pagan Hellenic tradition would continue to flourish in the Greek world and rural and local cults also persisted.

Democracy: Political rights were restricted to adult male Athenians. Women, foreigners, and slaves were excluded. An Athenian came of age at 18 when he became a member of his father’s deme and was enrolled in the deme’s roster, but as epheboi, most young Athenians were liable for military service for two years, before at the age of 20, they could be enrolled in the roster of citizen who had access to the assembly. Full political rights were obtained at 30 when a citizen was allowed to present himself as candidate at the annual sortation of magistrate and jurors.

Education, Greek: Greek ideas of education, whether theoretical or practical, encompassed upbringing and cultural training in the widest sense, not merely school and formal education. The poets were regarded as the educators of their society.

Food and drink: The Ancient diet was based on cereals, legumes, oil, and wine. Meat was a luxury for most people.

Gems: Precious stones were valued in antiquity as possessing magical and medicinal virtues, as ornaments, and as seals when engraved with a device.

Hephaestus was the Greek god of fire, of blacksmiths, and of artisans.

Ivory plaques at all classical periods decorated furniture and were used for the flesh parts of cult statues and for temple doors.

Juno was an old and important Italian goddess and one of the chief deities of Rome. Her name derives from the same root as iuventas (youth), but her original nature remains obscure.

Kinship in antiquity constituted a network of social relationship constructed through marriage and legitimate filiation, and usually included non-kin — especially slaves.

Libraries: The Great Roman libraries provided reading-rooms, one for Greek and one for Latin with books in niches around the walls. Books would generally be stored in cupboards which might be numbered for reference.

Marriage in the ancient world was a matter of personal law, and therefore a full Roman marriage could exist only if both parties were Roman citizen or had the right to contract marriage, either by grant to a group or individually.

Narrative: An interest in the theory of narrative is already apparent in Aristotle, whose Poetics may be considered the first treatise of narratology.

Ostracism in Athenian society the 5th century BC was a method of banishing a citizen for ten years. It is often hard to tell why a particular man was ostracized. Sometimes the Athenians seem to have ostracized a man to express their rejection of a policy for which he stood for.

Plato of Athens descended from wealthy and influential Athenian families on both sides. He rejected marriage and the family duty of producing citizen sons; he founded a philosophical school, the Academy; and he published written philosophical works.

Quintilian, a Roman rhetorician, advised that children start learning Greek before Latin. The Roman Empire was bilingual at the official, and multilingual at the individual and non-official, level.

Ritual: The central rite of Greek and Roman religion is animal sacrifice. It was understood as a gift to the gods.

Samaritans, the inhabitants of Samaria saw themselves as the direct descendants of the northern Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, left behind by the Assyrians in 722 BC.

Toga: The toga was the principal garment of the free-born Roman male. As a result of Roman conquest the toga spread to some extent into the Roman western provinces, but in the east it never replaced the Greek rectangular mantle.

Urbanization: During the 5th, 4th, and 3rd centuries, urban forms spread to mainland northern Greece, both to the seaboard under the direct influence of southern cities, and inland in Macedonia, Thessaly, and even Epirus, in association with the greater political unification of those territories.

Venus: From the 3rd century BC, Venus was the patron of all persuasive seductions, between gods and mortals, and between men and women.

Wine was the everyday drink of all classes in Greece and Rome. It was also a key component of one of the central social institutions of the élite, the dinner and drinking party. On such occasions large quantities of wine were drunk, but it was invariably heavily diluted with water. It was considered a mark of uncivilized peoples, untouched by Classical culture, that they drank wine neat with supposed disastrous effects on their mental and physical health.

Xanthus was called the largest city in Lycia (southern Asia Minor). The city was known to Homer, and Herodotus described its capitulation to Persia in the famous siege of 545 BC.

Zeus, the Indo-European god of the bright sky, is transformed in Greece into Zeus the weather god, whose paramount and specific place of worship is a mountain top.

Featured image: Colosseum in Rome, Italy — April 2007 by Diliff. CC-BY-SA-2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post The Classical world from A to Z appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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In AD 14, two thousand years ago this summer, the emperor Augustus, having dominated Rome for over forty years, finally breathed his last. The new emperor was his step-son Tiberius. While Augustus’ achievement in ending civil war and discreetly transforming a republic into one-man rule provokes grudging admiration even from those who aren’t keen on autocracy, Tiberius has very few fans. Suetonius’ biography, the third in his twelve Lives of the Caesars, offers some intriguing insights into why this might be.

Descended from one of Rome’s most noble families, Tiberius, in his mid-50s when he came to power, had led a series of enormously successful, if unshowy, military campaigns, securing Pannonia (roughly modern Hungary) in the east and doing much to stabilize the troublesome area around the Rhine in the north. He loved literature, philosophy, and art. He was just the kind of man who had dominated the senior echelons of the senate under the republic – a very traditional kind of Roman leader, it might seem.

But among ancient commentators only Velleius Paterculus, who wrote during his reign, has much good to say. Suetonius, in his biography, and Tacitus, in his Annals, offer a litany of damning criticisms. Tiberius, himself a great respecter of tradition, a stickler for proper procedure, seems to have found his position – as not quite fully acknowledged autocrat, expected to exercise personal dominance through what purported to be the old republican framework – deeply uncomfortable. Unlike Augustus, he had no desire whatsoever to develop a warm relationship with the common people of Rome. (Suetonius makes clear his total lack of interest in the games – a telling indicator.) No money was spent on public works. He veered between insisting the Senate behave independently and dropping cryptic hints as to how he wanted it to vote. Yet his chief crime, in the eyes of some ancient critics, was deserting Rome.

In 26 AD, twelve years into his reign, Tiberius withdrew to the island of Capri, never to return to the city. Was this meant to look like a return to senatorial government? For the next eleven years, imperial control was exercised remotely, for the most part through Sejanus, prefect of the praetorian guard. Among the many prominent Romans convicted of treason in those years were members of Tiberius’ own family, including the widow and two elder sons of his nephew Germanicus. Eventually Sejanus, too, ended up a corpse in the Tiber, taking with him as he fell many who had hoped to profit by associating with the emperor’s henchman. This bloodbath reflects Tiberius’ innate cruelty, as well as his insecurity – but Suetonius highlights other vices, too.

His biography begins with some family history – a mixed bag of earlier Claudians, male and female, some famous for their virtue, others notorious for their arrogance and depravity. Suetonius then charts Tiberius’ early life, his distinguished military career, his accession and the largely positive measures he undertook in the early years of his reign. But chapter 33 hints darkly at the character assassination, which is to follow: ‘He showed only gradually what kind of emperor he was’. This move prefigures the comments Suetonius makes in his Lives of Caligula (ch.22: ‘The story so far has been of Caligula the emperor, the rest must be of Caligula the monster’) and Nero (the end of ch.19 prepares the reader for ‘the shameful deeds and crimes with which I shall henceforth be concerned’). For Suetonius, character, though it may be temporarily masked, is not subject to change or development.

Suetonius does note that Tiberius’ withdrawal meant provincial government was neglected but stories of the emperor’s depravity get much more attention. Once on Capri, Tiberius ‘finally gave in to all the vices he had struggled so long to conceal’. His drinking was legendary, his sex life exceeded the worst imaginings. Surrounded by sexually explicit art-works, Tiberius was addicted to every kind of perversion, with boys, girls – even tiny children. The accusations relating to oral sex would have aroused particular loathing on the part of Roman readers. Tiberius’ appetites were hardly human; ‘people talked of the old goat’s den – making a play on the name of the island’. What did Tiberius really get up to? Stories of this kind were part of the common currency of Roman political discourse. Suetonius devotes similar space to the sexual transgressions of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian – such behaviour is to be expected of a tyrant. The remoteness of the emperor’s residence itself must have fuelled the most lurid imaginations back in Rome. Emblematic of Tiberius’ impossible position is his relationship with his mother Livia. Had she not been Augustus’ wife of many decades, Tiberius would never have succeeded to power. Suetonius repeatedly underlines Livia’s key role in promoting her son. She persuaded Augustus to adopt him, following the deaths of his two adult grandsons. She helped to ensure a rival candidate was eliminated. Even after Tiberius succeeded to Augustus, Livia remained a force to be reckoned with: ‘he was angered by his mother Livia on the grounds that she claimed an equal share in his power’. Yet we should perhaps be just as wary with regard to these stories as with those about Tiberius’ sexual tastes. What better way for Tiberius’ critics to undermine him than to allege this experienced military man in late middle age needed advice from his mother? Such claims would perhaps have been especially offensive to someone of Tiberius’ ultra-traditional outlook. The senators who proposed to honour him with the title ‘Son of Livia’ knew how to torment the emperor. Indeed Suetonius reports stories that the main reason Tiberius left Rome for Capri was to get away from his mother.

Image credits: (1) Siemiradzki Orgy on Capri by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1881. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (2) Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar (42 BCE – 37 CE). From: H.F. Helmolt (ed.): History of the World. New York, 1901. University of Texas Portrait Gallery. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Tiberius on Capri: in pursuit of vice or just avoiding mother? appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Okay, wow, Curses and Smoke put me through an emotional meat grinder.  I was a bit hesitant to read a book based on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, mainly because I had reservations about receiving a happy ever after.  I mean, this story is framed around one of the greatest natural disasters of the ancient world.  I can’t imagine how the people of Pompeii felt during the earthquake, and then when the mountain exploded with a deafening boom, vomiting a deadly mix of debris 20 miles into the air.  I know how I would feel, and I at least understand some of the science behind the event.  Not so for the citizens of Pompeii.

I loved Curses and Smoke until the last three chapters, and while I would like to leave it at that, I will warn you – there is no happy ending here.  I felt extremely depressed when I got to the end of the book, after a marathon reading session last Saturday.  I even stayed up way past my bedtime to finish, and then BANG!  I couldn’t sleep because I was so upset by the ending.  While my original fears of doom and gloom did manifest, they had nothing to do with the volcano and everything to do with greed and an inflated sense of ego.  So senseless! Ugh!

Lucia’s father runs a school for gladiators in Pompeii.  He is desperately in need of funds to expand operations, so he arranges Lucia’s marriage to a rich patrician, a man forty years her senior.  Lucia is beside herself; she doesn’t want to marry someone older than her grandfather, but her father’s mind is made up. 

When Tages, a medical slave who was her childhood friend, returns from studying in Rome, Lucia is even more determined to find a way out of the upcoming wedding.  She loves Tag, and she will do anything to be with him.  She’s even willing to run away, despite the danger and risks it would pose.  For Tag, however, running away isn’t an option.  He won’t leave his elderly father behind, and Lucia’s father is cruel and doesn’t hesitate to punish his slaves for the slightest offense.  Running off with his daughter would mean a painful death, for both Tag and his father.

I found the details of Roman daily life interesting, and most were seamlessly woven into the story.  The book is told through alternating POVs, following both Tag and Lucia during the four weeks leading up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  While Lucia frets about her impending marriage and her complete loss of freedom, Tag tries to fit back into the daily grind of the gladiator school.  He wants nothing more than to train himself, so he can win his freedom one day, but he’s far too valuable to Lucia’s father to be allowed to fight.  His frustration with his lot in life, especially after rich boy Quintus begins training at the school, radiates off the pages.  He is trapped, and there is no way out of his servitude.  Like Tag, Lucia is also trapped.  She has no say in the path her life will take, and it seems that she, too, will live the rest of her life in servitude to her elderly husband (why does being a girl suck in almost every culture?).

Lucia’s father believes he is under a curse, and he blames Tag for the ill-luck that has befallen his school since the death of Lucia’s mother.  The curse weaves through the story, twisting like a snake from one misfortune to the next.  While I don’t believe in curses, I do believe in karma, and Titurius earned every bit of bad luck that visited him.  The more I learned about him, the less I liked him.  The real tragedy of Curses and Smoke is how his actions brought terrible consequences for the people he should have loved and protected the most.  Instead, he failed everyone close to him, including himself.

Setting aside the ending, which is a complete downer, I really enjoyed Curses and Smoke.  I love the time period and the setting, and the backdrop of impending disaster kept me on the edge of my seat.  Lucia is a sharply intelligent young woman, who notices the strange events taking place around Pompeii  and yearns to discover the reason for them.  She also yearns for the freedom to love a man of her choice, instead of being sold like a brood mare.  If you are interested in Ancient Rome, you will probably enjoy Curses and Smoke, too.

HF Virtual Book Tours invites you to follow Vicky Alvear Shecter as she tours the blogosphere for Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii from May 26-June 13.

Publication Date: May 27, 2014

Arthur A. Levine Books

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Genre: YA Historical   

When your world blows apart, what will you hold onto? TAG is a medical slave, doomed to spend his life healing his master’s injured gladiators. But his warrior’s heart yearns to fight in the gladiator ring himself and earn enough money to win his freedom. LUCIA is the daughter of Tag’s owner, doomed by her father’s greed to marry a much older Roman man. But she loves studying the natural world around her home in Pompeii, and lately she’s been noticing some odd occurrences in the landscape: small lakes disappearing; a sulfurous smell in the air…

When the two childhood friends reconnect, each with their own longings, they fall passionately in love. But as they plot their escape from the city, a patrician fighter reveals his own plans for them — to Lucia’s father, who imprisons Tag as punishment. Then an earthquake shakes Pompeii, in the first sign of the chaos to come. Will they be able to find each other again before the volcano destroys their whole world?

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About the Author

Vicky Alvear Shecter is the author of the young adult novel, CLEOPATRA’S MOON (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2011), based on the life of Cleopatra’s only daughter. She is also the author of two award-winning biographies for kids on Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. She is a docent at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Antiquities at Emory University in Atlanta.

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Click here for the complete tour – http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/cursesandsmoketour/

The post Review: Curses and Smoke by Vicky Alvear Shecter appeared first on Manga Maniac Cafe.

Wisdom’s daughter walks alone

The Mark of Athena burns through Rome,

Twin snuff out the angel’s breath,

Who holds the key to endless death.

Giant’s bane stands cold and pale,

Won through pain from a woven jail.

• 586 pages or 15 hrs, 9 min in audiobook version
• Read the first chapter of The Mark of Athena here.
• Listen to an audiobook excerpt of The Mark of Athena.
• A Teacher's Guide to Rick Riordan's books is available on his site.
• Fans will love it.
• I'm in the Greek camp.

Adapted from the Latin by M. D. Usher Illustrations by T. Motley David R. Godine 2011 Ah, the good old days of Ancient Rome, where a a reckless traveler manages to turn himself into an ass – literally, a donkey – and survive to tell the unbelievable tale to his traveling companions. First, for those who know the original tale and might have some concerns, Usher's adaptation is cleaned up

Paul Waters, author of The Republic of Vengeance and Cast Not the Day returns to ancient Rome in the brilliant new sequel The Philosopher Prince, out this week from The Overlook Press. In 2010 Paul Waters introduced Cast Not the Day, a compelling and unflinchingly violent new classic of historical fiction written in the tradition of Mary Renault and Rosemary Sutcliff. In The Philosopher

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]-->2011 marks the 2500^th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon, perhaps the most decisive event in the struggle between the Greeks and the Persians, and also a defining event for Western civilization. Available this week in paperback, MARATHON is the riveting history of the famed battle by Columbia University professor Richard A. Billows. We have Richard with us today on the blog to answer a few questions about his most recent book.

OP: The legend of the Greek messenger running twenty-six miles from Marathon to Athens with news of victory in battle is the inspiration for our modern-day race. Sources suggest that in reality, the entire Greek army marched this distance to defend Athens. Why does this popular myth persist in spite of its historical inaccuracy?